[OSM-talk] The OSM Applet - let's ditch it for JOSM (was: Mapping Reading, some impressions)

[Christoph Eckert]

Hi Tom,


> Speaking as the person who wrote the initial version of the current
> applet, can I just say that the continued trashing of it on this list
> is tiresome, offensive, and not constructive.

true. I wonder that you still can stay that cool. So let me clearly 
state that all the efforts you put in it are much appreciated. Sure the 
applet has some problems, but for the users two options remain:
* Shut up or
* Complain and provide an improved version :)

> I accept, as I'm sure 
> do Steve (who wrote the tiling interface to the applet amongst other
> bits) and Imi (who retrofitted tagging into the applet, even though
> he didn't like it!), that the way the applet works just isn't viable
> for efficient and productive editing.  If we knew then what we know
> now, we would have done it differently.  I don't want to hear any
> more "the applet sucks" type criticisim.  Everyone agrees it's
> unusable... and yet nobody is stepping up to do something about it.

Unfortunately I cannont code, but I wonder if it can get designed to be 
a little bit faster. Maybe removing the landsat feature helps? What I 
really would like to see are zoom buttons. [ and ] are bad because on 
german keyboards I guess normal users don't know how to reach them (Alt 
Gr 8/9 on Win, even worse on Mac, Alt - 5/6 while it's nopt printed on 
the keys).

> It seems that for 99% of people actually actively mapping, JOSM is
> the main tool of choice (no offense to other editor writers).  How
> about we ditch the applet and put a page about JOSM on the edit tab?
> Download links, how to navigate to the area you were just viewing, a
> full tutorial, etc.  I don't think at the moment it would hurt OSM
> one bit if JOSM became an 'official' client and there was no
> web-based editing solution.

Disagreed. The applet is cool just *because* it is embedded in a web 
page, because you can invoke it by passing coordinates and because it 
allows unexperienced users to view already existing data or even do 
simple editing. Without installing the rigth Java version. Without the 
need to install an extra application.

If it was possible to speed it up a bit, it would be worth the efforts.


Just my two cents,


ce